Many types of common everyday documents are routinely processed by classifying and sorting the documents according to information appearing thereon. By way of example, checks and similar drafts and negotiable instruments drawn upon a bank or like financial institution are routinely processed according to an account number assigned to the maker and according to the amount of the instrument. Similarly, the U.S. Postal Service processes mail on the basis of a geographical zip code system by which each item of mail is routed to its particular destination according to a zip code contained in the address on the face of the mail item.
While bank checks and similar instruments commonly carry the maker's account number printed thereon in machine readable form and a small proportion of mail is machine addressed with the zip code in a bar code or other machine readable form, much of the processing of checks, mail and similar documents must be performed manually, due in large part to the fact that a sizeable proportion of bank checks, mail and the like is written by the issuing party by hand.
This type of processing is very labor intensive as well as prone to significant numbers of errors. Others have recognized this problem and have proposed varying solutions, each of which is significantly flawed.
For example, Green U.S. Pat. No. 4,588,211 discloses a machine readable document such as a negotiable instrument or check 60 having a blank area or field 82 in which the check maker enters the numerical value of the check on line 86. The patent discloses a code means, such as the zones 116 to 124, comprised of normally invisible ink or coding which can be machine read. According to the particular sequence of coded or uncoded zones in each area of the check, such as, for example, the area 82, a machine can determine the particular location on the check where a given area is. However, there is still no guarantee that the handwritten information within each area can be machine readable because of the non-uniform nature of the characters represented in the area.
Another example of an attempt to solve the instant problem is the Kehoe U.S. Pat. No. 4,582,345 which discloses a check 10 having a "security device" 16 imprinted thereon for providing a numerical representation of the sum for which the check is drawn. The device 16 includes a plurality of rows 17, each containing an array of digits reading, from left to right, zero through nine. The check maker, when making out the check, writes in words the numerical amount of the check at the location 14 and then checkmarks, circles, crosses out, or otherwise scribes the appropriate digits in the row 17 of the security device 16 which correspond to the numerical amount of the check. However, Kehoe's proposed solution to the problem also falls short of its desired goal because of the difficulty in filling out the security device 16. Additionally, the security device 16 does not function with non-numerical information to be written on the check.
Yet another proposed attempt to enable certain documents to be machine read is found in Erikson U.S. Pat. No. 4,358,017 which discloses a mail direction system comprising an envelope 11 to be carried in a carrier 13 which may be, for example, a large envelope. On the upper right-hand corner of the front portion 15 of the carrier 13 is a clear plastic pocket 17 into which a director card 21 is inserted. The director card contains information concerning the location or address to which the carrier 13 is to be directed. The director card 21 has a plurality of indicia locations 25. The sender inscribes an indicia such as a numeral in each indicia location 25. To facilitate the printing of the indicia or numeral, each indicia location 25 has a "double dot" 27 which helps the writer properly center the indicia or numeral being inscribed in the indicia location 25. However, this method and device still does not ensure machine readable alphanumeric markings on documents.
Thus, it is desirable to provide a method and article resulting in a machine readable document which ensures fairly uniform alphanumeric hand printed indicia to facilitate machine reading of the handwritten indicia on the document.